The international volunteer force assembled to fight the Russian invasion of Ukraine has recruited a significant number of Canadians, according to the group’s spokesperson. “We have quite a lot of Canadians,” Corporal Damien Magrou, who speaks for the newly-formed International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, said in an interview. “Ukraine has a very strong diaspora in Canada, so we’ve got a number of Ukrainian-Canadians — let’s put it that way, some with a lot of experience,” Magrou told Global News.
Thousands of volunteers from around the world are said to have offered to join the effort to repel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to annex his western neighbour.
Magrou declined to disclose numbers but said the top sources of recruits accepted into the foreign legion were Poland, the Baltics, Britain, the United States and Scandinavia. Read more: Calgary military vet heads to Kyiv to join fight against Russian military They include veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and some were combatants in Syria, where they fought alongside Kurdish armed groups battling ISIS, he said. “So what we get the most of in terms of combat experience, it’s Iraq tours, Afghanistan tours, though we also have some people that were fighting in Syria for various sides,” said Magrou. “Canada was the whole time in Afghanistan.
We’ve got quite a lot of recruits that were there.” After Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the creation of an international legion that would operate as part of Ukraine’s military.